


A Marriage of Convenience

by CherriesOnTheCake



Category: Patiala Babes
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 18:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherriesOnTheCake/pseuds/CherriesOnTheCake
Summary: Babita and Hanuman find each other while she’s pregnant with Mini (and before he met Immarti).





	1. Prologue

The day Babita discovers she’s pregnant is the day Ashok’s law firm finally sends her the signed divorce papers. It is also the day her father finally succombs to the sadma of her failed marriage and dies of a heart attack. With a single stroke of a pen her entire life has been destroyed. The fact that it took less than a year after her wedding for this to happen just adds further insult to the injury.

“We can overcome this, didi,” her brother tells her defiantly after the funeral rites have been completed, as if his new fiancee’s family hasn’t been pressuring him to kick Babita out of the house. “I’m your brother and this is your house as much as it is mine. It doesn’t matter if a thousand girls reject me, you will always be welcomed in this house.”

“I know I will,” she continues to pack her bags regardless, “but I can’t live here any more. Smita’s family is right. You can barely support two people with your salary. Adding me and a child to that is unfeasible. You should focus on building your family not overseeing the wreckage of mine.”

“What would you even do all alone out there, where would you go?” He grabs her arm. “Think about this logically for a second, Babita. The world is a harsh place as it is for women. But for a single mother out there all alone it’s a junoon!” He takes a deep breath, “Stay with me. Give me the opportunity to serve you how Laxman served to Ram.”

“Laxman spent fourteen years in vanvaas because of Ram’s choices,” Babita gives him a fond smile, “I love you too much to allow that.” She presses a kiss to his forehead when he starts to cry. “Don’t worry about me bhai. I have a plan. I promise no harm will come to either me or the baby.”

-/-


	2. Chapter 1

Sub-inspector Hanuman Singh has been in his post at Patilala Police Station for exactly five weeks when his dada finds him a girl.

“I gave you a month to find a chori,” he tells him firmly when Hanuman opens his mouth to argue, “and you couldn’t. So now I’ve found one on your behalf and you will marry her. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” Hanuman fires off a half-hearted salute before escaping the haveli with the undercooked paratha the maid prepared earlier that morning. As soon as he’s out of sight of the house, he throws the paratha into a pack of wild dogs, slips on his sunglasses, takes out his danda, and walks to work with the kind of swagger his dadaji would probably beat him for if he ever saw it.

Truth be told he’s not even sure he wants to marry anytime soon, but if he does he certainly doesn’t want the kind of sanskari girl his dadaji has likely chosen for him — plump, plain faced, so depressingly meek she’d be unable to hold so much as his gaze let alone his interest, and so stupid he’d have to beat her everyday just to keep her in line. Having said that, however, he can’t exactly bring home one of the modern college girls he likes to flirt with either. A modern girl would suffocate in his house between his strict dadaji’s rules and his drunkard papaji’s antics.

What he’s always wanted is a girl somewhere in-between. One who could satisfy his needs while also satisying his family. But he had a month to find a girl like that and couldn’t, so now he has no choice but to follow his dadaji’s wishes.

He kicks an abandoned Bisleri bottle violently into the gutter.

“This is a holy place. How dare you soil it with your presence! Do you have any idea how long it will take me to purify the mandir now?”

“Please. I have nowhere else to go. I...”

Hanuman is so deep in thought he almost misses the pundit of the nearby matarani mandir physically throw a woman down the entry stairs. But he spots them just in time run up the steps and grab her before she can fall. She’s young he realises when he has her balanced firmly against him, at best his age, with wide kohl rimmed eyes he struggles to meet and clear sun-kissed skin a shade or two duskier than his. She’s heartachingly beautiful as if she’s been plucked out of a black and white film and he struggles to let her go.

“Hanumanbeta thank Matarani you’re here,” the pundit runs downstairs, his leathery feet slapping like chapals on the marble steps. “I caught this aurat sleeping in the mandir. A single woman sleeping rough in a place of God, can you believe her audacity!” 

Hanuman turns from the pundit to the woman in question. She adjusts her dupatta to cover her body more securely and he runs his eyes over her body. Her dress is a pale pink colour that became fashionable after the release of the latest Kajol blockbuster and looks clean and expensive. Silver and pearl jumkas dangle from perfectly formed ears and thick silver anklets adorn slim ankles. She’s clutching a heavy looking cloth bag against her side — the strap seems to have broken in the scuffle. 

“She’s dressed far too well to be a street urchin,” He remarks still unable to look her in the eye. “What are you doing here Miss...”

“Babita,” she says with panicked eyes. “I-I have nowhere else to go Inspectorji.” He smirks at the accidental promotion, “I just wanted a safe place to sleep.”

“Come now Babitaji. A woman such as yourself must have someone to rely on: a husband, parents, siblings?” He raises an eyebrow when she bows her head in embarrassment. “I see,” he glances at the pundit. “She really can’t stay here?”

“We aren’t a dharamshala,” the pundit sniffs before pulling out a mobile phone from his pocket. “I suggest putting her in the thane for a night. The bitter taste of jail time might encourage her to find a more suitable place to sleep next time. Who do these homeless people think they are, breaking into my mandir like this!”

Hanuman watches him go before turning to the woman in front of him. He hesitates before pulling out his wallet. 

“Here,” he reluctantly pulls out three one-thousand rupee notes. “This should give you a room somewhere in the neighbourhood. A woman as beautiful as you shouldn’t sleep out in the open like this. It’s not safe.”

“I’m fine,” she takes a step back when he tries to press the notes in her hand. “I have money it’s just...” she bites her lip. “Nobody wants to rent a room to a woman like me.” She covers her stomach and he frowns when he eventually sees the small but obvious bump there.

“Petse ho kya?” She nods pitifully. “What about the father?”

“I’m divorced.”

Hanuman sighs with frustration, pulling off his cap so he can run a hand through his hair. He doesn’t consider himself a good man as such, far from it, but can’t imagine any man stooping so low as to not only divorce his pregnant wife but also abandon her to the streets. 

“I have to go to my duty,” he’s actually late. Something his Inspector will probably punish him for with filing. Hanuman hates filing. “There’s a gurudwara nearby, do you know where it is?” He sets his jaw when she nods. “Good, go there and wait for me. I’ll meet you at the gate at six. You can stay with me and my dadaji for a few days.”

-/-


	3. Chapter 2

Hanuman has been filing for eight hours when he’s called out to Inspector Joshi’s office. To his surprise his dadaji is sitting drinking whiskey with him. Another man with a huge handlebar moustache sits next to them with a woman standing nervously behind his chair. The minute Hanuman enters she blushes and with a sinking heart he realises exactly who she is.

“My grandson, Hanuman Singh,” his dadaji introduces him to the man next to him. Hanuman shakes his hand and nods at the woman behind him. She’s round faced and fair skinned; plump because his dadaji liked plump women when he was younger and can’t understand why Hanuman doesn’t. “Hanuman this is Rathod Singh, his father and I grew up together. The young lady behind him is his neice Immarti.”

His lips twist into a half-hearted smile.

“Immarti has passed tenth standard,” Rathod Singh says jovially from behind his ridiculous moustache and all of a sudden Hanuman feels suffocated. “It’s not as high as your BA but she can cook and clean. For a girl there’s no higher education than that!”

Immarti looks embarrassed which is a start at least. Most of the girls Hanuman’s grandfather has introduced him to would have seen it as a compliment.

“Actually dadaji I am quite busy today. It was great to meet you all but I hope you don’t mind if I return to my duties.”

“No of course not!” Rathod Singh booms as he pours out another round of whiskey, “you get on with your work.” 

“Nonsense,” Inspector Joshi slams a fourth glass onto the table, “sit yourself down and have some fun Hanuman. That’s an order!”

Hanuman practically runs out of the room when he’s finally able to and it’s only when he’s in the relative privacy of the filing room that he allows himself to truly react. He throws a chair against one of the filing cabinets, breaking it into several pieces, before kicking a table over. He’s so angry he doesn’t even realise he has tears in his eyes until he looks up at the clock to realise the numbers are blurred. Wiping his face with the back of his hand he looks again and winces when he realises it’s seven o’clock.

He’s late, he sniffs, frantically searching for the wallet he left on one of the tables. After a short search he finds it under a filing cabinet and he has just enough time to grab it before he runs out of the station.

Babita’s standing by the gate when Hanuman arrives at the gurudwara at eight, and he feels a palpable sense of relief at seeing her safe in front of him. The shadows under the eyes he still can’t meet are a bit deeper, the line of her back a little less straight, but even then he finds her a thousand times more attractive than Immarti. He takes his hat off as he approaches.

“Sorry for being late,” he says as he stands in front of her, “have you eaten yet?” 

“No,” she turns her gaze to a child limping past them, “I thought you wouldn’t come.”

“You waited for me anyway.” 

Babita lowers her head nervously. “I shouldn’t have. It’s too late to go to your house and now even the night shelter behind the bus station is closed.”

“It’s my house Babitaji,” Hanuman snaps. “I decide when it’s too late to have visitors.” He runs a hand through his hair. “We should just eat here. It will be quicker than going to a dhaba.”

Babita follows him like a shadow as they enter the gurudwara and if he didn’t catch sight of the pale pink of her dupatta every now and again he wouldn’t even have known she was there.

“My grandfather fixed my marriage,” he says as they enter the langar hall. “That’s why my duty overran. Here let me take that. You can make my plate,” he takes the bag from her and watches as her slim fingers twist akwardly into her dress. 

“Do you like her?” She asks when they finally sit together to eat. This particular gurudwara may not seperate the sexes but it’s still considered unusual for unrelated men and women to sit together. He can already feel inquisitive eyes staring at the back of his neck. 

“Who?” 

“The girl your grandfather got you engaged to. What was her name?”

“Immarti and no I don’t like her.” Not how he already likes Babita despite knowing next to nothing about her. “I don’t even know her.”

“Immarti as in the sweet?” She smiles and with that the awkwardness between them is broken as soundly as, well, an immarti apparently. Hanuman doesn’t know, he hasn’t tried them. “I used to love making them as a child and while I would always figure out even the most complicated shapes, they never quite tasted right. My mother used to joke that a cook can either be an immarti person or a jalebi person but not both. I guess I was a jalebi person.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hanuman smirks as he breaks his paratha, “but it’s cute.” He grins when she blushes. “So, you like cooking?”

“I love it,” she corrects with a beautiful smile that he can’t help but answer with one of his own. Not for the first time he wonders what kind of man her husband was, that he would reject her for someone else. He must have been immensely stupid Hanuman decides. “I had half an idea to study it at college once.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She sighs, “Ashokji’s family came to see mine when I was in tenth standard and we were engaged not long afterwards. It was a battle to get his parents to agree to my completing highschool before our wedding. They would never have allowed me to go to college so I never asked. Did you go?”

“Yes,” he slurps from his bowl of dal. “I went to Punjab University right here in Patiala.” He steals a glance at her as she picks at her food. “Why did he divorce you?” He bites his lip when she stops even pretending to eat, wondering if he said the wrong thing.

“He didn’t. I divorced him.” She takes a deep breath. “He met someone else while he was in London but still wanted me to stay with his parents to take care of them.” Hanuman grimaces at even the idea of that but it’s not unusual. They usually deal with at least two or three cases of spouse abandonment a week at the station. Most of the harami husbands involved are NRIs. “He fought so hard against the divorce and played every trick he could to get me to stay. It’s just as well that I only found out about the baby after it was all finalized.”

“So he doesn’t know about the pregnancy?”

She shakes her head and his shoulders slump with relief. He doesn’t know why he’s relieved. Growing up without a parent is tough, he of all people knows that, and if Babita were a girl from his mohalla he would counsel her to stay in contact with this Ashok person for the child’s sake. But there’s something about the idea of Babita that makes him possessive despite barely knowing her, “That’s good,” he tears off a piece of paratha and dips it into his yoghurt. “It means he can’t harrass you.”

Babita gives him a thin smile but continues to only play with her food. He wonders if it’s normal for women to lose their appetites during pregnancy and resolves to ask Lala, one of his constables, as soon as he can in the morning. 

“What are they like?” she says at last, “your family, I mean,” and Hanuman freezes mid-bite. In the midst of everything he forgot that he was supposed to bring Babita back to his house with an excuse. His intention had been to lie to his dadaji, say Babita was the wife of a colleague who had to go out of town for a few weeks, and put her up in the ramshackle barsaat room upstairs. But that plan went kaput the second his dadaji invited his supervising inspector to a late night whiskey and chess session.

“It’s just my dadaji and papaji at home. Papaji is a drunk but you don’t need to worry about him; he spends most of his time passed out in an adda somewhere. He only comes home when he runs out of money and I can handle him. Dadaji’s strict but fair. He might give me a few dandas at first for bringing you home with me so late but he’ll understand.”

His heart races suddenly when he catches her smile before she hides it bashfully under her hand, “God you are so beautiful.” 

It slips out accidentally. She is divorced and pregnant and he’s going to marry another woman. There is absolutely no point at all trying to verbalise the tendrils of attraction that appeared out of nowhere when he first caught her at the mandir, because they can’t have a future together.

But as Babita’s cheeks pinken and Hanuman’s racing heart contracts at the possibility that his attraction might not be so one-sided after all, he really wishes they did.

-/-


End file.
